TheTrillium.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\nOntario\u2019s Liberal leader, John Fraser, also stood in the legislature to raise concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never dreamed I\u2019d be saying these words in this place. Did the premier actually give $10 million of taxpayer money to the owners of a strip club?\u201d he asked. <\/p>\n
In response, Ontario\u2019s Minister of Labour David Piccini, stood with a one-word answer: \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Questions continued in the legislature Wednesday. It\u2019s the latest development in the ongoing scandal around the Skills Development Fund, a government training fund that is meant to train and re-tool workers.<\/p>\n
But the fund has come under fire since September thanks to connections from recipients to the governing party unearthed by opposition members and reporters in the media.<\/p>\n
Records show that over four years ending in 2025, the labour ministry gave about $9.8 million in grants to a numbered company, 12490625 Canada Institute.<\/p>\n
That company shares a director and an address with an agency called \u201cThe Social Equality and Inclusion Centre,\u201d which is listed as receiving grants in three rounds of the Skills Development Fund.<\/p>\n
On its Facebook page, SEI says it \u201csupports women re-entering the workforce and provides re-training to women who may need to enter a new line of work.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an email to CTV News, SEI said it partnered in that mission with several organizations including the Toronto Event Centre and Grand Bizarre, run by Zlatko Starkovski.<\/p>\n
Starkovski has operated an event venue out of the Horticulture Building on Toronto\u2019s Exhibition Grounds for at least a decade.<\/p>\n
In September of this year, Starkovski opened up FYE Ultraclub in the building, which describes itself on social media as a nightclub \u201cfor those where discretion is a must.\u201d<\/p>\n
In February, city records show staff licensed the venue as an \u201cadult entertainment club,\u201d a category often used for strip clubs.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Starkovski said there are no strippers there.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo SDF funding has been used for any purpose related to FYE Ultraclub, including the training and compensation of any burlesque dancers, aerialists, or any performers involved in the new FYE Ultraclub project,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Social Equality and Inclusion Centre said in an email it \u201chas not been and is not involved in the new FYE Ultraclub pilot entertainment project in any training and financial capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n
All of this came only a day after Piccini faced an integrity commissioner complaint over allegedly playing favourites with recipients of the Skills Development Fund.<\/p>\n
Piccini is also facing his third week of resignation calls from the opposition.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery day we have more headlines. I don\u2019t understand. I have been asking myself why this Minister of Labour is still sitting in his seat and why the premier hasn\u2019t fired him,\u201d Stiles said in a scrum after Question Period on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
In the legislature halls, Premier Doug Ford answered a several questions from the media on whether strippers were being trained using government funds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is 100 per cent absolutely false. Just dig into it, do your due diligence, and you will find that. It\u2019s good theatrics for the [Ontario] Liberals. But it\u2019s absolutely false. We are training over 700,000 people. Our goal is to hit a million people and give them an opportunity that they might otherwise not have,\u201d Ford said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ford government questioned over whether company tied to strip club got skills fund money Ontario\u2019s opposition parties are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[712,49,48,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-264059","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}